CBS NEWS CORRESPONDENT ELIZABETH PALMER IS THE ONLY U.S. NETWORK CORRESPONDENT TO REPORT FROM INSIDE SYRIA — ON “CBS THIS MORNING”
PALMER TELLS CO-HOSTS GAYLE KING AND ANTHONY MASON: “THERE’S NEVER BEEN TREPIDATION LIKE THERE IS RIGHT NOW” AND THAT “NOBODY KNOWS WHERE THE MISSILES MIGHT FALL”

August 30, 2013

CBS News Correspondent Elizabeth Palmer is the only U.S. network correspondent to report from inside Syria today, August 30, 2013, on CBS THIS MORNING (7:00-9:00AM) on the CBS Television Network.Palmer, who was with U.N. inspectors in Damascus as they investigated last week’s apparent chemical attack, reported that the people of Damascus are concerned about the threat of possible chemical attacks and the potential of an American missile strike.“There’s never been trepidation like there is right now,” she told co-hosts Gayle King and Anthony Mason. “Nobody knows where the missiles might fall,” Palmeradded.

Below is a transcript.

MASON: We begin with Elizabeth in Damascus who went out this morning with those U.N. inspectors. Elizabeth?

PALMER: They left the hotel and made a couple of false starts actually. It looked as if they wanted to go back to the suburbs they had visited earlier in the week, the site of Wednesday’s attack, but turned back maybe because there was heavy shelling. I can hear the artillery now as I sit in the studio. It’s been going on all morning. So, instead we followed them to the military hospital where they were going to talk to six soldiers also allegedly suffering from the effects of chemical poisoning or some sort of toxin. Maybe soldiers who were on the roadblocks around those suburbs that were hit last Wednesday or perhaps soldiers who were part of a team, that says the government discovered a large stock of chemical weapons belonging to the opposition in a tunnel. We won’t know that until the inspectors’ report. This is their last day. They’ll be out of here by tomorrow and the Secretary General has said there will be a preliminary report soon, but a really specific one, one that examines any traces of chemicals they found for markers that might even tell us who made them. That could take days or even weeks. Now, I should tell you that I’ve been coming to Damascus a long time, and in the last year as the violence escalated people got used to an awful lot. The shelling that I was just talking about, mortars falling here and there, car bombs, but there’s never been trepidation like there is right now. There are two new huge threats as far as [people of Damascus]are concerned. One, of course is another chemical attack. And everybody feels vulnerable there, vulnerable to changes in the wind. And, secondly of course, the threat of American strikes. Nobody knows where the missiles might fall. So this is a very, very tense place this morning, Anthony and Gayle.